The more simple translation of Trump’s message to the Saudis seems to be
something like this: “Our occupation of Syria is costly. If you don’t
want Assad and Iran to regain the whole country, then you’re invited to
take over the occupation yourselves.”

Jonathan Cook, journalist

I can't stress strongly enough how important it is to be reading the
posts of former British ambassador Craig Murray as you try to weigh the
claims being made by the UK government about the Salisbury nerve agent
attack.

As Murray points out, Boris Johnson's new claim that
the UK learnt "within the last decade" that Russia had stockpiles of
Novichok nerve agents raises more questions than it answers.

Murray:

In short, we should be extremely sceptical of this sudden new
information that Boris Johnson has produced out of a hat. If the UK was
in possession of intelligence about a secret Russian chemical weapons
programme, it was not under a legal obligation to tell Andrew Marr, but
it was under a legal obligation to tell the OPCW. Not only did the UK
fail to do that, the UK Ambassador Sir Geoffrey Adams was last year
fulsomely congratulating the OPCW on the completion of the destruction
of Russia’s chemical weapons stocks, without a single hint or
reservation entered that Russia may have undeclared or secret stocks.

The US government's election-meddling apparatus -- the National
Endowment for Democracy -- has been an unmitigated disaster and an
embarrassment to the US since it was founded in 1983. The NED is the
flagship for US political meddling abroad, and Trump proposes to slash
its budget by 60 percent, from $170 million to $67 million. When
Congress created the agency in 1983, it prohibited NED and its grantees
from directly aiding foreign political candidates. But that law
restrains NED as effectively as the Fourth Amendment’s restriction on
warrantless searches leashes the National Security Agency. Let's hope
Trump slashes it by a full 100 percent -- but 60 percent is a good
start!

The Japanese government claims that radiation levels in the reopened
zones pose no risk to human health and that its own data has been
corroborated by the country’s medical experts as well as the United
Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.

CATALONIA

[ VIDEO ]

🎥
It's 5 months since the imprisonment of two pro-independence leaders.
Take a look back at yesterday's protests demanding their release. In
some places, pictures of Spain's King were burnt down https://goo.gl/BNwtCZ ~~~

Without
Western intervention to overthrow the Syrian government, the unrest
that began seven years ago would have long been over. Reforms were
introduced by the Assad government and the path to a multi-party system
had begun. But that was not enough. The US and its allies wanted Assad
gone. Hundreds of thousands are now dead and the country largely
destroyed. It is a horrific crime that will go unpunished. Read more at
the link:

It is home to two UK Government facilities: a site of the Ministry of
Defence’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) – known for
over 100 years as one of the UK’s most secretive and controversial
military research facilities, occupying 7,000 acres

After
seven years of war in which hundreds of thousands of Syrians were
killed and millions turned into refugees, it’s now obvious the U.S.
regime change operation in Syria has failed. Under Harper, Canada played
a central role in supporting armies of mainly al-Qaida terrorists as
proxy U.S. foot-soldiers. During the war on ISIS, Trudeau put Canadian
refuelling, reconnaissance, and transport vehicles at the disposal of
the U.S. [ 581 more words ]

Is the US government about to launch a massive attack on Syrian
government headquarters in Damascus? The Washington Post has reported
that the US is considering a new military action against Syria for -
what else - retaliation against Assad's latest "chemical attack," which
took place several weeks earlier. However, then-Secretary of State
Tillerson said at the time that the US has no idea who launched the
chlorine attack. The Russian government claims US-backed rebels are
being trained to launch a "false flag" attack, while last week the
Russian government also said any attack on Syrian government forces by
outside powers would be attacked by Russia. Is WWIII about to start?

CATALONIA

It seems that Puigdemont's participation in the Film Festival for Human
Rights in Geneva (Switzerland) is making Madrid angry (reports Tages
Anzeiger). Spanish authorities are trying to have him arrested...

(AHT)
— Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has been highlighting his
government’s independence from international money lending organizations
and their detrimental impact the nation, the Telesur TV reported.

“A day like today in 1944 ended Bretton Woods Economic Conference
(USA), in which the IMF and WB were established,” Morales tweeted.
“These organizations dictated the economic fate of Bolivia and the
world. Today we can say that we have total independence of them.”

Morales has said Bolivia’s past dependence on the agencies was so
great that the International Monetary Fund had an office in government
headquarters and even participated in their meetings.

Bolivia is now in the process of becoming a member of the Southern
Common Market, Mercosur and Morales attended the group’s summit in
Argentina last week.

Bolivia’s popular uprising known as the The Cochabamba Water War in
2000 against United States-based Bechtel Corporation over water
privatization and the associated World Bank policies shed light on some
of the debt issues facing the region.

sábado, 17 de marzo de 2018

Britain has now been joined by the United States, France and Germany in
blaming Russia for an alleged murder plot on British soil. No verifiable
evidence has been provided by the British authorities to support their
shrill claim of Russian violation.

By PoliticalConcern:
Senior ministers have been told that the nerve agent used to poison
Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, on Sunday 4 March 2018 near
Porton Down, has been identified by Porton Down experts as the
organophosphate Novichock. Porton Down’s research focus has successively
been known as Chemical Warfare, Chemical Defence, Chemical &
Biological Defence and now Defence Science and Technology. Areas of
concern are outlined here. Early British collaboration with American chemical warfare research (aka ‘field studies’) is acknowledged here.

In 2015 the Guardian reported that
a cross-party MPs called for an inquiry into the compulsory use of
dangerous chemicals called organophosphates (OPs), used to protect
livestock from parasites. The Farmers Weekly reported that the Sheep Dip Sufferers Support Group repeated this call in 2016

The problem was first identified by Dr Goran Jamal, a Kurdish-born
neurologist working in Glasgow, who later gave evidence of OP-related
Gulf War Syndrome. Read Booker’s compelling account in Scared to Death: From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth, or extracts from it here.

Overseas, the United States is engaged in real wars in which bombs
are dropped, missiles are launched, and people (generally not Americans)
are killed, wounded, uprooted, and displaced. Yet here at home, there’s nothing real about those wars. Here, it’s phony war all the way. In the last 17 years of “forever war,”
this nation hasn’t for one second been mobilized. Taxes are being cut
instead of raised. Wartime rationing is a faint memory from the World
War II era. No one is being required to sacrifice a thing.

Now,
ask yourself a simple question: What sort of war requires no sacrifice?
What sort of war requires that almost no one in the country waging it
take the slightest notice of it?

United States paratroopers airborne infantrymen in action in the desert

DR. PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS: President Trump has nominated a person, Gina
Haspel, to be CIA Director who is deeply implicated in CIA torture and
destruction of the evidence. The Republicans want to confirm her as “an
excellent choice.” One assumes the feminists also favor confirmation
as she is female. That she is a woman, a torturer and destroyed
incriminating evidence qualifies her to be CIA Director.

SWEDHR have performed several analyses around reports on alleged
chemical attacks in Syria, which mostly have been originated in claims
by the White Helmets and associates. In the main, our conclusions were
that the alleged evidence appear clinically and epidemiological flawed.
For instance, in regard to the Khan Shaykhun incident, as put forward in
a document by the SWEDHR chair recently published by the United Nations
Security Council.

INDER COMAR: Democracy is dying. As we convene to remember the 15th year
anniversary of the Iraq War, the fundamental lesson of that war is that
our democratic norms are at grave risk when judges and courts fail to
hold government leaders accountable for a patently illegal war.

Hollywood’s
recent attempt to depict Frontier life captures the reality of
“hostiles” shooting various weapons at one another, but the real history
is more interesting, Jada Thacker explains in this essay.

The
yesterday's sharply-worded joint statement on the Skripal case issued
by Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Theresa May, which
included the latest reiteration of the strange accusations leveled
against Russia, threatens to push the row between Russia and the West to
a new, much more serious level. Why is this happening and and what is
motivating these Western leaders? [ 601 more words ]

The
yesterday's sharply-worded joint statement on the Skripal case issued
by Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, and Theresa May, which
included the latest reiteration of the strange accusations leveled
against Russia, threatens to push the row between Russia and the West to
a new, much more serious level. Why is this happening and and what is
motivating these Western leaders? [ 601 more words ]

In a bitter irony, Colin Powell, who was responsible for the coverup of
the My Lai massacre acceded to a “brilliant” career in the Armed Forces.
In 2001 he was appointed Secretary of State in the Bush administration.
Although never indicted, Powell was also deeply implicated in the
Iran-Contra affair.

General HR McMaster, Trump's National Security Advisor, has vowed that
US troops will remain in Syria not just until ISIS is defeated, but
until the Syrian government is overthrown. McMaster demanded that “all
civilized nations” come together to punish both Russia and Iran for
backing the Syrian government. He warned Assad would not have impunity,
and neither would Russia or Iran. The iron fist emerges from the velvet
glove narrative...

CATALONIA

🎥The
Spanish prosecutor is pushing its government to move to arrest Carles
Puigdemont, in Switzerland. The Helvetic country says there is "no legal
basis" so far. Learn more here: https://goo.gl/FvTYzh ~~